Online help and Open in UltraEdit issues with UltraCompare Lite v14.00

MickRC3 · May 24, 2017#12017-05-24T15:37+00:00

My office still uses UltraEdit v21.20.0.1004.

1)
I was doing a compare of two files and wanted to alter the settings in UltraCompare Lite. When I clicked on Help it went the IDM website but the page was not found, so no help. I suppose that when the site was recently updated the help page was moved and since new UltraEdit users get UltraCompare Pro instead of Lite, the error hasn't been noticed.

2)
I had 2 sessions of UE running. Session one was on screen 2 and had several files open in it that I was modifying. Session two was on screen 3 and had two output files in it that I was using UltraCompare Lite on to search for differences. While editing code in session one, the UC screen from session two was shuffled behind another application, leaving only part of the screen visible. When I clicked on it to bring UC back to the front, I accidentally performed a double click. To my surprise this double click caused the two files being compared to open in my UE session one. So now I had the files open in both sessions one and two.

Mofi · May 26, 2017#22017-05-26T09:11+00:00

About help of UltraCompare Lite

UltraCompare Professional v8.20 to v15.20 as well as UltraCompare Lite v14.00 to v15.10 open on clicking in menu Help on menu item Index the online help page of UltraCompare. But the online help system is temporary unavailable as it can be read by opening main page of IDM online help.

I don't know when this help system is available again and if it will be ever available again. You can ask IDM support by email if you want more information about future plans on IDM online help system.

UC Lite v8.20 is installed first with UltraEdit for Windows v21.20. UE v21.10 is bundled with UC Lite v8.10 which uses the file ucl.chm installed with UC Lite on opening help from within UC Lite.

UC Lite v15.10 is installed last with UltraEdit for Windows v23.10. UE v23.20 is bundled with UC Lite v16.00 which uses again the file ucl.chm installed with UC Lite.

All those versions of UC Prof. und UC Lite opening by default the online help are installed also with an offline help. ucl.chm is in same directory as ucl.exe and uc.chm is in same directory as uc.exe.

In UC Prof. it is possible to open this offline help from within UC by opening Session - Session Properties and clicking in this window on button Help simply because of the UC developers forgot to modify the code for this help button to open the appropriate page in online help system. But I could not find any method to open the offline help from within UC Lite.

The offline help was not updated since UC Prof. 8.10 with a few small exceptions up to UC Prof./Lite v16.00 as the offline help became again the main help for UltraCompare. However, most help pages of the offline help are nevertheless useful in versions of UC using by default online help system. See also forum topic UltraCompare General Documentation? in My 2 Cents forum being accessible only for registered and logged in forum members.

The file ucl.chm can be opened from outside UC Lite with a double click on it. This file can be found with UltraEdit being installed with default installation path in one of the following folders.

For UltraEdit for Windows ≤ v22.10:

On 64-bit Windows: %ProgramFiles(x86)%\IDM Computer Solutions\UltraEdit
On 32-bit Windows: %ProgramFiles%\IDM Computer Solutions\UltraEdit

For UltraEdit for Windows ≥ v22.20:

64-bit UltraEdit on 64-bit Windows: %ProgramFiles%\IDM Computer Solutions\UltraEdit\uclite
32-bit UltraEdit on 64-bit Windows: %ProgramFiles(x86)%\IDM Computer Solutions\UltraEdit\uclite
32-bit UltraEdit on 32-bit Windows: %ProgramFiles%\IDM Computer Solutions\UltraEdit\uclite

In other words in program files directory of UltraEdit or its subdirectory uclite.

About opening compared files by accident additionally in first UE instance

UC Prof. and UC Lite do not get information from which instance of UltraEdit being started with the files to compare if being started at all from UltraEdit (Prof. only). Therefore on double clicking into a file pane the command Open in UltraEdit or Open in UEStudio is executed to open the compared files in UE or UES on which UC sends the information to open the two compared files always to first instance of UltraEdit found in Windows process list.

It would be of course possible that a running instance of UltraEdit finds out which instance number respectively process identifier the current instance of UltraEdit has and pass this information together with the files/folders to compare and all the other options to UC Lite/Prof. Then UC Lite/Prof. could look in Windows process list if UltraEdit with instance number X respectively process identifier Y is still running and send the information to open the compared files to this specific UltraEdit process.

Feel free to request such an enhancement to IDM support by email.

But I suppose it will get a very low priority for implementation as the vast majority of UltraEdit and UltraCompare users use the standard configuration with using only 1 instance of UE/UC and for that reason most users never run into the situation as detected by you by mistake.

MickRC3 · May 26, 2017#32017-05-26T13:34+00:00

Thanks for the very complete answer, Mofi. You're right about the lack of need to change the behavior on double-click. I only have two instances of UE running perhaps 5% of the time. Having two instances and also using UC even less often.